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Textiles

The 50,000 objects in the textile collections fall into two main categories: raw fibers, yarns, and fabrics, and machines, tools, and other textile technology. Shawls, coverlets, samplers, laces, linens, synthetics, and other fabrics are part of the first group, along with the 400 quilts in the National Quilt Collection. Some of the Museum's most popular artifacts, such as the Star-Spangled Banner and the gowns of the first ladies, have an obvious textile connection.

The machinery and tools include spinning wheels, sewing machines, thimbles, needlework tools, looms, and an invention that changed the course of American agriculture and society. A model of Eli Whitney's cotton gin, made by the inventor in the early 1800s, shows the workings of a machine that helped make cotton plantations profitable in the South and encouraged the spread of slavery.

By the 1840s a new technique [in the field] of needlepoint known as Berlin wool work was the rage. It arose in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. New dyes became available and brightly colored wools could be worked in tent stitch on canvas. The patterns were painted by hand on “point paper,” which today would be called graph paper. Jane’s piece is an example of this technique.

This large rectangular canvas work piece depicts the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. The biblical account is found in Genesis 22:1-14. Abraham is standing clothed in flowing robes girded at the waist, with a dagger hanging at his left side. He gestures toward the sky with his left hand, and his right hand is over Isaac’s face. A lamb is in the bushes at the right side of the picture and smoke is coming from a brazier in the left corner. The picture is worked on penelope canvas ground, 9/18 threads per inch, with Berlin wool in cross stitch. The faces, hands, and feet are done in petit point.

Jane Elizabeth Loucks was born in 1835 to John and Desdemonia Marsh Loucks in Sharon, New York. She married Joseph Warren Hastings on February 16, 1871, in Manhattan, New York. They moved to Illinois and had one daughter, Dena. See her other pieces; Mary Queen of Scots and The Ascension of Jesus.

Jane Elizabeth Loucks was born in 1835 to John and Desdemonia Marsh Loucks in Sharon, New York. She married Joseph Warren Hastings on February 16, 1871, in Manhattan. They moved to Illinois and had one daughter, Dena. See her wining piece, Mary Queen of Scots.

This sampler features nine rectangles that are outlined by cross-stitch and satin sawtooth bands. The center and corner rectangles contain flowers and strawberries with some worked in crinkled silk. The flower and strawberry motifs on this sampler indicate nature and a perfect fruit: the strawberry has no rind or pit to throw away. The verses and inscription are in the remaining four rectangles, reading from the top center, to the right center, to the left center, back to the lower part of the right center, and then to the bottom center, resulting in jumps from one rectangle to another where words did not fit the space. The words are worked in green and yellow thread, except for the name “Phebe Hoopes,” which is worked in the only black thread used on the sampler. The inscriptions are:

“Waz[s]h Lord ANdPUrIFY MY HeartANd MaKe It CleaNIN EVerY Part ANdWheN It IS CleaNLOrd KeeP It SOFOr That IS MOreThaN I CaN DOThe LOSS OF TIMeIS MUCh The LOSSOF Truth IS MOreThe LOSS OF ChrIStIS SUCh That NO

MaN CaN ReStOrePOOR State of JaCobHere It SeeMS TO MeThe CattLe FOUNdAS SOFt A Bed AS HeYet GOd APPearedThere HIS JOY ANdCrOWN GOd IS NOtALwaYS FOUNd ONBedS OF DOWN

The four verses that Sarah Hoopes included reflect the emphasis of her time on piety and the brevity of life. Even though Sarah’s sampler came to the Smithsonian in poor condition, it is important to the study of these compartmented verse and flower samplers that were worked only in Philadelphia. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 51, weft 46/in. The stitches used are cross, satin, stem, and outline.

Sarah Hoopes was born on December 25, 1785, to Abraham (1755-1807) and Susanna McNees (1752-1834) Hoopes of Newtown, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Her father was a shoemaker. She lists the names of her two brothers, Reese and Daniel, and her two sisters, Alice and Phebe, on her sampler. There are other initials under Phebe’s name. She died unmarried.

After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures. The death of George Washington gave impetus to this new fad of the mourning picture. It included an assortment of plinth, urn, mourners, and trees in a garden setting.

This oval embroidered mourning picture on a rectangular silk ground, was created in memory of Mrs. Abigail Peebbles and Margaret Stevenson. It shows an urn on a plinth, with angel face and wings on each side of the urn and the inscription: “NOT / LOST BUT / GONE / BEFORE.” The inscription on the plinth is “To the memory / of / Abigail Peebbles / obit Feby 9t 1798 AE 26 / and / Margaret Stevenson / Obit July 24th 1797 AE 3." To the left of the urn is a large weeping willow tree whose top bends over and behind the urn. To the right of the urn is a female figure with a sunburst on the bodice of her flowing gown. The ground fabric is ivory silk satin, backed with fine linen. The stitches are encroaching satin, daisy loop, outline, straight, back, and long and short.

This embroidery includes the typical objects found in mourning embroideries: angels, weeping willow trees, and an urn on a plinth. The female figure may represent virtue and the sun on her bosom would indicate that virtue is cherished by the “natural dictates of conscience” according to Thomas Sheraton’s Cabinet Dictionary, 1803.

Meisa (Mary) Stevenson was born July 26, 1784, and on June 20, 1808, she married Kimball Washburn (1784-1825). Mary died October 5, 1829. Abigail and Margaret were probably Meisa Stevenson’s sisters and the embroidery was worked in Maine. The piece descended through the family of George Kneeland Washburn, one of their eight children.

The lettering on Elizabeth’s sampler is in black silk, and the whole sampler is framed by vines with leaves and flowers worked in various pulled thread patterns. She included the inscription:

"Elizabeth Pitman inher 12th year 1802And am I born to die, to lay this body downAnd muf[s]t my trembling f[s]pirit fly into a worldunknown"

(Most of the verse had disappeared; however it is a standard verse on samplers of the period, Hymns for Children (1763) by Charles Wesley.) Charles Wesley wrote over two thousand hymns during his lifetime, and Elizabeth Pitman chose one that was often used on samplers on the imminence of death. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 44, weft 44/in. The stitches used are cross, rice, Algerian eye, eyelet, outline, stem, and pulled thread. Elizabeth’s sampler came to the Smithsonian in very poor condition, but is important for research because of the pulled thread work on it and because it is a rare Southern sampler.

Elizabeth Pitman was born on November 30, 1790, to Andrew and Francis Frankey Pitman in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She married Isaac Mytinger on July 16, 1807, and sometime after his death on May 26, 1814, she married Anthony Huffman (1784-1861). They had seven children - David (1815-), Frances C. (1816-), John Morgan (1821-), Caroline Matilda (1825-), Edward (1828-), Ann Elizabeth (1830-), and Asburina Cornelia (1833-). She died on September 3, 1870.

This sampler features two block alphabets, and below the alphabets are flower-baskets, trees, birds, and dogs. The flower baskets on this sampler may stand for friendship and love, while the birds are spirits of the air, and dogs denote fidelity and watchfulness. It is hemstitched on all four sides. Hannah included the inscription:

“Hannah Hall / AE 12 1803”

The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 25, weft 22/ in. The stitches used are cross, crosslet, satin, and reverse tent.

This sampler features six block alphabets: five of 26 letters and one double. All the rows are separated by simple geometric crossbands. Mary Stabler’s sampler is an example of a marking sampler that consisted predominately of alphabets and numbers, and was usually the first sampler a young lady stitched. Alphabets were used to mark linens for identification. Mary included the inscription:

“Mary P Stabler’sWorkAged 11 Alexandria”

The sampler is stitched with silk and cotton embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 28, weft 29/in. The stitches used are: cross, crosslet, four-sided, double cross, rice, Algerian eye, queen, and herringbone.

Mary Pleasants Stabler was born on January 30, 1809, to Edward and Mary Hartshorne Stabler in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1835 she married John Leadbeater and they had eight children - Edward S., Lucy, Mary G., Alice, Anna, Alice, William, and Thomas. Mary died on August 9, 1863. See her daughter Anna Leadbeater’s samplers.

This sampler features a footed bowl on a square base, holding a large bouquet of flowers. One flower has been shaded with dark red and orange-red paint over the stitches. Jane included the inscription:

To accompany her large bouquet of flowers, Jane Price used stanzas 2 and 9 from a verse accompanying a nosegay found in an English reader published in 1816. A small bouquet of flowers often given as a gift was known as a nosegay. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 25, weft 28/ in. The stitches used are chain, stem, surface satin, cross, outline, herringbone, crosslet, and French knot.

Jane Winter was born on March 17, 1818, to Richard and Catherine Winter Dunnington Price in Charles County, Maryland. She married Josiah Woods McHenry (b. May 14, 1815 in Christianburg, Virginia) on February 27, 1849, in Shelby, Alabama. They moved to Union Springs, Arkansas and had four children - Catherine Price (1850-), Barnabas Middleton (1852-), George Richard (1854-), and Jane Cornelia (1856-). By the 1870 census they were living in Homer, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, and she died there on January 11, 1899.

In the 20th century, women’s hobbies included embroidery techniques such as needlepoint and crewel.

This rectangular canvas work depicts a "Sea Beast." Thirty-seven kneeling sea creatures with fishlike tails are on the shore, with a three-spired pavilion with sea horse banners on each spire. There is a sea beast's head and two more sections of his serpent-like body rising from the waters. At the top upper right are the initials EBR 1935. The ground is cotton canvas. The threads are tapestry wool in shades of brown from beige to chocolate and the stitches are half cross and tent.

According to a family member, “Sea Beast” is based upon a painting made by a friend of Eleanor’s who was a medium.

Eleanor Butler Alexander was born on December 26, 1888, in New York City to Henry and Grace Green Alexander. She married Theodore Roosevelt II on June 20, 1910. They had four children: Grace, Theodore III, Cornelius V. S., and Quentin. She died on May 29, 1960, in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York.

This sampler features two script alphabets to “X,” and there are also two block alphabets: one with 26 letters and one to “W” with “NOPQ” not worked but a space left for them. At the bottom of the sampler, is a two-story house (in perspective) with a tall pointed tree and a spreading tree behind an ornamental fence, which has reverse-curved sections between fence-posts topped by urns. The house on Diana Austin’s sampler could be her home or the home of her teacher. She showed advanced technique by using surface stitches for her trees and not cross stitch. Diana included the inscription:

“Diana Austins SamplerMarked AD 1827 Aged 8PENFIELD NY”

The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 39, weft 46/ in. The stitches used are cross, detached chain, four-sided, Algerian eye, buttonhole, outline, and satin.

Jotham Austin married Hannah Case as his second wife on August 25, 1817, in Franklin, Vermont. At some point they moved to Penfield, New York, where Jotham died in March 1830 and Hannah died on May 11, 1830. They had two children - Diana (b. May 9, 1819) and Sabrina P. (b. March 13, 1824). Libbeus Ross, who was married to Hannah’s step-daughter Honoria Austin, was appointed guardian of the family according to Hannah’s will, dated March 15, 1830.